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Marking the 10 Year Anniversary of the Afghanistan War

This week marked the 10 year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, making it the longest period of sustained warfare in our country’s history. The item I find most notable about this is less than half of Americans in the general public think that the Afghanistan War is worth fighting and just half of post-9/11 veterans think it is worth fighting.

Check out the following graphic from the Pew Research Center:

And not surprisingly, the numbers for those thinking that the Iraq War was worth fighting are even lower.

Today in downtown Los Angeles, 15 people were arrested protesting the war, and in Times Square in New York, about a hundred people protested the anniversary of the Afghanistan War. I suspect that as the Occupy Wall Street protests continue, people will start to weave in a narrative about the cost of the wars in terms of the impact these military adventures have on not just the lives of service members and their families but in terms of how money spent abroad could be spent domestically on infrastructure, schools, etc.

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All those American soldiers who have died violently so Dick Cheney, the Bush Family, the military industrial network, and the Oil Lobby can steal billions of tax dollars that could otherwise be put towards public education, infrastructure, job creation, and green technology.